Prime Ministers

Events In History

13 August 2005

Death of David Lange

David Lange was New Zealand's youngest prime minister of the 20th century. Renowned for his sharp wit and oratory, he led the fourth Labour government from 1984 to 1989. Read more...
31 August 1974

Death of Norman Kirk

Leader of the Labour Party since 1965 and prime minister since late 1972, 'Big Norm' died suddenly at the age of 51. He was the fifth New Zealand PM to die in office. Read more...
26 November 1960

'Kiwi Keith' begins 12-year reign as PM

The National Party, led by Keith Holyoake, swept into power, defeating Walter Nash's Labour Party, which had held office for the previous three years Read more...
1 May 1893

Richard Seddon becomes premier

Richard Seddon became the Liberal Party's second premier following the death in office of John Ballance. Immortalised as ‘King Dick’, Seddon would dominate the New Zealand political landscape for the next 13 years. Read more...
7 May 1856

Henry Sewell becomes the country’s first premier

Sewell held the position for just 14 days before being replaced by his provincialist rival William Fox, whose ministry in turn lasted just over a week. Read more...

Articles

Premiers and Prime Ministers

From Henry Sewell in 1856 to John Key in 2010, New Zealand has had 38 prime ministers and premiers. Read biographies of the men and women who have held the top job, discover more about the role's political origins, and explore fascinating prime ministerial facts and trivia.
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Page 2 – Political origins
Overview of the influence of the British political system in New Zealand and our move toward self-government in the 19th century.
Page 3 – Biographies
A list of New Zealand Premiers and Prime Ministers from 1856 to the present
Page 4 – Prime ministerial trivia
Trivia about New Zealand's premiers and prime ministers.
Page 5 – Further information
This web feature was written by Gavin McLean and produced by the NZHistory.net.nz team.LinksDepartment of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) - the government department that

Housing the Prime Minister

Almost 150 years after the government purchased the first official premier's residence on Tinakori Road, Wellington, the address of Premier House remains the same. But in the intervening years the building has been extended, renamed, abandoned and refurbished.
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Page 2 – The first premier house
Our first premiers had to find their own digs. That changed in 1865, when the government bought the premier a simple 22-year-old wooden cottage in Thorndon’s Tinakori Road.
Page 3 – Unofficial prime ministerial houses
From 1935 to 1975 our prime ministers lived in a series of 'unofficial' houses
Page 4 – Vogel House and Premier House
Since 1975 the official prime minister's residence has been at Vogel House and, since 1990, Premier House

Biographies

Coates, Joseph Gordon
Gordon Coates seemed unbeatable. Tall and handsome, this affable war hero embodied modernity – he was the ‘jazz premier’. In 1925’s presidential-style election voters elected to take their ‘Coats off with Coates’.
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Fraser, Peter
Peter Fraser, New Zealand’s wartime PM, led the nation for nine years. Respected rather than loved like Savage, many experts rate him our finest PM.
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Kirk, Norman Eric
In 1972 Norman Kirk broke National’s 12-year-long grip on the Treasury benches and became Labour’s first New Zealand-born PM.
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Nash, Walter
At almost 76, Walter Nash was New Zealand’s oldest incoming PM and the last foreign-born one. He had two wives, Lotty, and Parliament. He was still an MP when he died aged 86.
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Savage, Michael Joseph
Michael Joseph Savage, New Zealand’s first Labour PM, was probably also it's best-loved. His avuncular image hung in the homes of the Labour faithful for decades.
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Lange, David Russell
Seven years and one stomach-stapling operation after entering Parliament in 1977, David Lange became PM at the age of 41.
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Holland, Sidney George
Holland became PM in 1949. A year later he abolished the Legislative Council, and in 1951, after winning the Waterfront Dispute, he increased his majority in a snap election.
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Hall-Jones, William
Although William Hall-Jones merely warmed the seat while Richard Seddon’s designated successor, Sir Joseph Ward, returned from Europe, he was the first leader to enter office as prime minister, not premier.
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Ward, Joseph George
Sir Joseph Ward, New Zealand’s political Lazarus, led governments nearly a quarter of a century apart.
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Mackenzie, Thomas Noble
The Liberals were already yesterday’s men when they made Thomas Mackenzie Sir Joseph Ward’s successor after needing the speaker’s casting vote to win a confidence vote.
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Massey, William Ferguson
William Massey is our second-longest serving leader. Although he was reviled by the left for crushing workers in 1913 with his ‘Massey’s Cossacks’ (strike-breakers), his legacy is being re-evaluated.
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Bell, Francis Henry Dillon
Sir Francis Bell was PM for only 16 days, but he held several distinctions – the second oldest (74), the first New Zealand-born, and the last from the Legislative Council.
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Forbes, George William
George William Forbes term as prime minister (1930-1935) coincided with the harsh economic and social climate of the 1930s Great Depression.
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Holyoake, Keith Jacka
‘Kiwi Keith’ Holyoake, the first officially designated deputy PM (1954) was our third-longest serving leader.Although criticised for sending troops to the Vietnam War, he is now seen as ‘the most dovish of the hawks’, doing the bare minimum to keep America happy.
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Marshall, John ('Jack') Ross
‘Gentleman Jack’ Marshall, for long – too long, he felt towards the end – Keith Holyoake’s deputy, spent mere months as PM, but served Cabinet well for two decades.
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Rowling, Wallace Edward
Norman Kirk’s death in office brought Bill Rowling to the prime ministership unexpectedly in August 1974. A member of an old Tasman Bay farming family, and a teacher by training, he had been finance minister since 1972.
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Muldoon, Robert David
Rob Muldoon was one of our most polarising PMs, the voice of ‘the ordinary bloke’ to supporters and a dictatorial bully to critics.
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Palmer, Geoffrey Winston
Geoffrey Palmer, the hardworking, loyal deputy who became PM when David Lange resigned dramatically in August 1989, knew that Labour was doomed. ‘What I got from Lange was a hospital pass.’
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Moore, Michael Kenneth
In September 1990, just weeks from an election Labour seemed certain to lose, the caucus made Mike Moore New Zealand’s third PM in 13 months.
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Bolger, James Brendan
New Zealand’s most openly republican PM, Jim Bolger presided over major electoral reform and Treaty of Waitangi settlements and outflanked Cabinet opposition to funding the new national museum.
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Shipley, Jennifer Mary
‘This ain’t a damn beauty contest. If you come into politics to be popular, then you’ve picked the wrong sport’, Jenny Shipley declared. New Zealand’s first woman PM came to power in 1997 after staging a carefully planned coup against Jim Bolger.
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Clark, Helen Elizabeth
Jenny Shipley may have been our first female PM, but Helen Clark was the first elected one. In 2008 she became our fifth longest-serving PM and Labour’s first to win three consecutive elections.
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Key, John Philip
John Key’s prime ministerial parliamentary apprenticeship is the shortest since David Lange’s. Like Lange, he is one of the few recent PMs without prior Cabinet experience.
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Main image: Keith Holyoake and Lyndon B. Johnson

New Zealand Prime Minister Keith Holyoake with United States President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House, 1968.